Running with the Pack Part 22

Tall spindly beasts, long-armed and stilt-legged, tongues lolling amid bone-needle fangs. They never approach, never touch her, only stare and follow, muttering and laughing to themselves, singing to the swollen orange moon.

Maybe there's no door, no opening, and she'll circle the wall forever. But Sephie's smelled the wind from the other side, a wind that smells like forests and gardens, like heaven. Roses and evergreen, ripe peaches and fresh bright blood.

And she knows, with the certainty of dreams, that the garden is a place for her. An Eden for ghouls and monsters, where the trees pump blood instead of sap and hearts grow ripe and beating on the vine. A place where she'll never have to eat cold meat, never have to kill. Where she won't be afraid.

It's enough to keep her walking the wall, night after night, ignoring the werewolves' snuffling laughter.

She doesn't find the door tonight. Instead the dream splinters and she falls through the cracks, falls back onto her sagging mattress. The shadowed bedroom ceiling stares her down while Billie Holiday sings about the moonlight.

Something woke her, but she's not sure what, until the mattress creaks and a warm weight settles over her. Familiar scratch of stubble, the salt-sweet taste of Caleb's skin.

He shouldn't be here, but his hands are sliding under her shirt, callused fingers kneading her ribs, and her body still remembers him, remembers when she didn't spend the nights trembling and alone. She arches against him as his tongue traces the angle of her jaw; her fingers tangle in his wet hair.

"Tell me you don't miss me." His breath tickles her sternum as his fingers slip beneath the elastic of her underwear. She bites her lip and doesn't answer.

His hair trails over her stomach, leaving warm wet streaks behind. "I would have taken care of you." He tugs her underwear over her hips and her breath hitches. "I still need you, Sephie." Lips press warm and rough below her navel, the pressure of teeth.

"Caleb-" And she shrieks as he bites. Light flashes in the window and she sees her blood on his mouth, his blood smeared over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and belly and hands, his eyes gleaming yellow in the glare.

And she wakes with a gasp. She's alone again, with the music and the soft sounds of traffic beyond the window, and only sweat slicks her skin.

Sephie can't sleep again that night, and when dawnlight creeps through the blinds she's aching and groggy. She wants to call in sick, but she gave Peter the last of her cash and the electricity's due soon, so she drags herself into the shower when the alarm shrieks.

She searches the foggy mirror for changes, like she does every time she eats. Maybe her teeth are a hint longer, a little sharper. Her nails have thickened, so thick now she can't chew them like she used to, has to worry her cuticles instead.

She thinks of Caleb's b.l.o.o.d.y grin, the dark half-circles under his nails. She's not like him, no matter what she's becoming.

Not yet, at least.

Another day of ignoring ghosts, of dodging Anna's questions and invitations. She aches with tension and fatigue by the time she gets home.

Caleb is waiting for her, bleeding on her dumpster-rescue couch. Sephie pauses on the threshold, nearly turns and runs.

But she's too tired, and running hasn't worked so far. She locks the door behind her.

"What do you want?"

"Your help." It's not what she expected. He's too serious; it looks strange on him.

"My help? Maybe you should have asked for that before you started stalking me. And anyway, you're dead."

His eyes narrow. "Whose fault is that?"

"You should have let me walk away." But it's hard to stay angry with a ghost. Arguing with Caleb is familiar, almost domestic, and better than being alone.

"You weren't walking-you were running. You wanted me to be strong. You wanted me to be scary. And then you couldn't handle it."

"I didn't want you to kill people."

"You wanted a pet monster, a killer on a leash."

She closes her eyes. "I wanted to feel safe."

"If I could have done that, I would have." She feels him in front of her, though she never heard him move. His hand cups her cheek, cool and rough, his touch lighter than it ever was. If she pushes, she might pa.s.s right through him.

"How did you find me, anyway?"

"I can feel you, everywhere I go. We're still all tangled up together."

"I'm trying to cut myself loose." She reaches up, not quite touching his b.l.o.o.d.y face. "I am sorry, though, about how things ended."

"Then help me. I can't stay here, Sephie, even for you. It's getting harder and harder. It hurts. But the other place-the badlands-are worse."

In spite of everything, in spite of the blood, the too-sharp teeth and gleaming eyes, he's still Caleb. Still the boy she fell in love with. She was always a little afraid of him, but it was a safer fear than others.

"What can I do?"

"You've seen it-the garden, the wall. I need to go there. I need to get inside."

"I can't find the way in. And it's only a dream." But she remembers the door downtown, the smell of roses and summer.

They just have to get there, past the ghosts, through the empty places. The thought makes her stomach lurch.

But if it weren't for her, for her fear, Caleb wouldn't be dead. Wouldn't need her now.

"Come on." She touches his cold hand. "I think I know the way."

The moon watches them as they cross the hollow city, spilling light the color of rust. In the distance something howls, like no dog Sephie's ever heard.

The dead follow in their wake, nearly a dozen ghosts now, watching with hungry eyes.

"Have you talked to them?" Sephie asks, trying not to glance back at their silent shadows.

"No. I think they're scared of me." He pauses. "We're scared of each other."

The shop is still there-she was afraid it would vanish, that she imagined it to begin with. This time she sees the sign: The Dream Merchant. As Caleb tries the door, she turns to face the ghosts.

She swallows, her throat dust-dry. "What do you want?"

Caleb catches her arm. "Sephie, don't-"

"We want out of here," the nearest answers. A woman, her bone-white face mottled with bruises, hair pale as cobwebs tangling over her shoulders.

"I don't know what to do. I don't know how to help you."

"Take us with you." She nods toward the shop. "Whatever's in there, it can't be worse than this place."

"It's locked," Caleb says, slamming his hand against a pane; it doesn't even rattle. "I can't break it."

Sephie touches the door. It feels real enough, peeling paint and dry wood, cold dirty gla.s.s. She can't see through the windows. Before she can think too long, she punches the gla.s.s.

She gasps as it shatters and pain spills hot up her arm.

The blood that blossoms on her knuckles is definitely real. The smell fills the air, bright and rich against so much nothing. The ghosts sigh like wind in the gra.s.s, and sway forward. Caleb swallows, and Sephie pulls her hand away.

Careful of the gla.s.s, she slides her good hand through the broken window, fumbling till she finds the lock. The door opens inward with a hollow rattle of bells. She listens for an alarm, but hears nothing.

The howl echoes again, closer now.

"Come on." Caleb steers her through the door, but Sephie turns to face the ghosts.

"Follow us if you want to, but I don't know where we're going."

One by one they trickle over the threshold, into the darkness of the shop. Sephie shuts the door behind them, and turns the lock. Blood drips off her fingers.

Caleb's hand tightens on her arm. "There it is."

She sniffs, catches the smell again, from somewhere in the darkness across the room.

"And what exactly are you looking for?"

Sephie spins, heart leaping in her chest, as a light blossoms on the stairs. Her eyes water at the sudden brightness, and she raises a hand against the glare.

"Who are you?" Sephie asks. The light is wrong, milk-blue and cold, its glare obscuring the man who holds it.

He chuckles dryly. "I'm the owner of the building you've broken into, the floor you're bleeding on. So I'll ask again-what is it that you want?"

She swallows. "We're looking for the garden."

The light dims enough for her to catch his puzzled frown. His black hair is tousled, shirt hanging open, and stubble darkens his jaw. "The- Ah." His eyes flicker toward the other side of the room. "I see. And who are you, young lady? The Pied Piper? The dead are much more nuisance than rats."

All the ghosts huddle behind her, even Caleb, shielding their eyes from the pale lantern.

"Please." The word catches in her throat. "I'm sorry about the window. But I have to take them to the garden."

"I run a business, not an underground railroad for the dead. Such services aren't free."

"I don't have any money. But I can get some-"

He studies her for a moment, his eyes cast in shadow. "I'm sure you can. And what surety will you give me, if I let you pa.s.s tonight?"

She opens her mouth, closes it again. "What do you want?"

His smile turned her stomach to ice. "I'll have your name, as a down payment."

"No," Caleb whispers.

"It's Sephie."

"No, my dear. Your whole name. And I'll know if you lie."

"Don't," Caleb says, louder. He moves toward the stairs. "Leave her alone."

The man raises the lantern higher. The light blazes, and Caleb falls back with a groan. "The name, if you please. Or I can send your friends back to the ground where they belong."

"Sephronia Anne Matthews."

"Excellent. Very well, Sephronia-" She winces at the sound of her name in his mouth. "-you and your friends may go down."

He descends the rest of the stairs and the ghosts flinch from the light as he pa.s.ses. He unlocks a door in the far wall; it looks like a closet, but when it opens a shiver runs through Sephie's bones. His lantern can't touch the blackness inside. One of the ghosts moans.

"This is it?" But she can smell it, warm and summer-sweet.

"That is the way."

She glances at the man, her eyes narrowing. "And we can come back this way?"

"You can. We still have your debt to settle."

"What now?" Caleb murmurs.

"We go down." The steadiness of her voice amazes her. Her good hand gropes for Caleb's as they step into the dark.

Down and down and down. Caleb's hand tightens painfully on hers, and she remembers the last time they went below, the trip into the darkness that started all of this. The gravemeat, the secrets of the dead. When they first became monsters, between-things.

But this road doesn't smell like death.

The ghosts make no sound behind them; Sephie doesn't look back.

She brushes her wounded hand against the wall, leaving a trail of blood-better than breadcrumbs. It feels like cement at first, cold and rough, but the texture changes, becomes sleeker, slicker, ridged and curving.

She doesn't know how long they walk, or how far. Step after step, one foot after another. The dark swallows sound, swallows time.

Eventually the wall falls away, and the smothering sensation eases. A moment later the stairs end, become a gentle slope; earth and rocks skitter beneath her boots. The air warms, and a humid breeze carries the smell of green things. The ghosts whisper among themselves. Sephie's hand is falling asleep in Caleb's, but she doesn't let go.

The darkness changes ahead, lessens. The mouth of a cave-they're almost out.

Something moves in the shadows, rasping breath and sc.r.a.ping claws. Three pairs of eyes burn against the black.

"What's this now?" A rough guttural voice. Nothing that comes from a human mouth.

"Little feet trip-trapping down our stairs," another hisses. "Is that you, merchant?"

"No, sisters. It's the little dreamer." And this a woman's voice, deep and rich.

"Ahh, so it is. I knew she'd find the way eventually."

"And she brought her friends."